An overview of reliable multicast transport protocol II

This document provides an overview of the reliable multicast transport protocol II, RMTP-II. RMTP-II is a reliable multicast protocol, designed to reliably and efficiently send data from a few senders to large groups of simultaneous recipients. It works over both symmetric networks and asymmetrical network topologies such as those provided by satellite, cable modem, or ADSL carriers. Before sending, each sender must connect with a trusted top node to receive permission and control parameters for its data stream. The top node provides network managers with a single point of control for the senders, allowing them to monitor and control the traffic being sent. RMTP-II builds on a rich field of existing work, and adds to it the following novel contributions. It differentiates the roles of the nodes in the protocol, provides algorithms for smoothing and control of the return (TRACK) traffic, and provides explicit support for highly asymmetrical networks. It provides explicit network management controls through a centralized point of control, a fully distributed membership protocol that enables positive confirmation of data delivery, and fault recovery algorithms which are integrated to the reliability semantics of the protocol. It includes a novel reliability level called time bounded reliability, and offers a unique combination of TRACKs, NACKs, and FEC for increased scalability and real-time performance. Finally, it integrates distributed algorithms for RTT calculation to each receiver, and provides automatic configuration of receiver nodes.